


Quarantriad

by Lies_Unfurl



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Asexual Bucky Barnes, Cats, Crack Treated Seriously, Domestic Boyfriends, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Healthy Relationships, Light Angst, M/M, POV Sam Wilson, Pandemics, Polyamory, Power Throuple, Stress Baking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:20:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27311779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lies_Unfurl/pseuds/Lies_Unfurl
Summary: “Absolutely not,” Sam says flatly.Steve, sitting at the opposite end of their extremely long couch, gives Sam his Most Sincere Look. “But it’s for your own good.”“I know. Believe me, I’m not trying to pretend that things are better than they are. And I’m gonna stay in as much as I can, wear a mask if I have to go out, wash my hands anytime I touch something, and all that jazz. But I amnotquarantining from myboyfriendswho Ilive with.”(Steve, Bucky, and their perfect immune systems are going out every day to help fight a pandemic. Sam and his ordinary white blood cells are forced to stay home. They cope. Mostly.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson
Comments: 14
Kudos: 70





	Quarantriad

Most of the time, the throuple thing actually works out really well.

When Sam thinks about it, it almost feels _too_ easy. Maybe it’s his internalized monoganormativity (Steve insists that’s a real word; as is typical with him, Sam hasn’t yet been able to determine if he’s fucking around or not). But he thinks there’s more to it than that. 

He, Steve, and Bucky have so much baggage that they’re banned from all major airlines. They’ve got more issues than _National Geographic_. When he first came in out of the cold, Bucky went through psychologists quicker than a man with ten tabbies and a cat allergy goes through Kleenex, and Steve apparently wasn’t much better when he first woke up. 

But the three of them together? It just works. 

It doesn’t make their problems go away, not even close. Sam never thought it would; that was one of the pitfalls he warned recently-returned vets about all the time: thinking that falling in love was a miracle cure for PTSD. No, it’s more like they all complement each other, and then the three of them together forms something else entirely new and powerful.

Steve and Bucky have their past. Sam and Steve have the bond they formed bringing down the government, fighting as Avengers, and spending almost two years traversing the world in search of a ghost. Sam and Bucky have… well. Gentle bullying, mostly, and really great sex, on the rare occasions that Bucky wanders in and announces that the stars have aligned and he’s up to fuck, if anyone else is interested. That, and prank wars against Steve.

The point is, the three of them? It’s far and away the best relationship Sam has ever been in. What they have _works_.

Except that’s in normal times. And as all the emails in his inbox, commercials on television, and messages in the Avengers Slack channel remind Sam, these times are not _normal_. These times are _unprecedented_. 

“Absolutely not,” Sam says flatly.

Steve, sitting at the opposite end of their extremely long couch, gives Sam his Most Sincere Look. “But it’s for your own good.”

“I know. Believe me, I’m not trying to pretend that things are better than they are. And I’m gonna stay in as much as I can, wear a mask if I have to go out, wash my hands anytime I touch something, and all that jazz. But I am _not_ quarantining from my _boyfriends_ who I _live with_.”

“Don’t think about it as you quarantining away from us,” says Bucky, who’s lounging on the floor well within six feet of Steve, Alpine sprawled across his lap. “Think of it as us quarantining away from you.”

“This is gonna come as a shock to you, but that isn’t actually any better.” Sam crosses his arms. “And before you offer to go live at the Tower instead of here, that’s even worse.”

Steve’s expression makes it clear that he was in fact planning to bring that up next. So maybe Sam is becoming psychic now. That’s basically the same thing as being a supersoldier, right?

“We can’t just sit around doing nothing,” Steve says earnestly, leaning forward. “And by ‘we’ I mean the two people in the room who are at absolutely no risk of getting sick. Think about it. We can bring supplies into hospitals. We can disinfect nursing homes. We can venture into grocery stores and shop and arrange contact-free pickup for people who can’t go out themselves. All the unpleasant, necessary work, we can do without worrying!”

“We just need to stay away from anyone we could infect. In case we do become carriers,” Bucky finishes. Alpine butts against his hand, offended by the momentary cessation of pets while he spoke.

“And it’s not for forever,” Steve adds. “Just until we have a way of making sure we’re not infectious at the end of the day. Tony is already working on developing a test that you can do at home and get instant results. He said it should be ready in three months or so, assuming we don’t care about the FDA approving it first.”

“Three months,” Sam echoes wearily.

The problem is that he can’t actually fault Steve or Bucky. He’d be doing the same thing, if he wasn’t stuck with a devastatingly ordinary immune system. Hell, he _should_ be on the front lines right up alongside them, if he hadn’t stupidly let his paramedic credentials lapse while he was busy with all the world-saving. 

That this is a perfectly ordinary pandemic, spread through public health failures and inept leaders, is fucking infuriating. He can’t even go air-kick the mad scientist who developed it, because there isn’t one. 

He also can’t be mad about the militant precautions. Not when his boyfriends both watched Steve’s mother die horribly from a contagious disease. No, their concern is reasonable and makes perfect sense.

That doesn’t mean that Sam has to like it.

“My bed is big enough that we can still sleep together,” Steve offers. “Well. Two at a time. And we’ll have to put up some sort of barrier to make sure we don’t get too close.”

Bucky and Sam both give him the same incredulous look, but it’s Buck who speaks first. “Pal, there’s no barrier on God’s green earth, or on Asgard or whatever, that could stop you from spooning up against Sam while you sleep.”

It’s true. Even if they go to bed barely touching, Steve always ends up smooshed against Sam by the time he wakes up, limbs tossed over him like a careless octopus and his face pressed against Sam’s chest or shoulder or ass. He’s usually drooling. When Bucky shares the bed, which he does more often than not these days, Steve will end up either between or on top of the both of them, no matter what position he started out in. He’s a magnet, and Sam and Bucky are refrigerators. That’s just how it is.

“I can try,” Steve says valiantly, but his grimace makes it clear that he knows Bucky is right.

“I’ll just stay in my own room.” They each have a space to themselves—Sam and Bucky have bedrooms they can go to for personal time; Steve, since Sam and Bucky have claimed dual citizenship with his bedroom, has his art studio.

“I’ll sleep by myself too,” Bucky offers. “In solidarity.”

“If you try to sleep by yourself, Alpine’ll claw through your door, shit on your carpet, and then jump on your bed and lie on top of your head.” Alpine, tiny she-beast that she is, purrs in Bucky’s lap. “And you don’t have to do that, man. But thanks.”

It’s fine. Sam can definitely go back to sleeping by himself. He hasn’t gotten _that_ used to always having another body (and often two other bodies) around, to pull close when he wakes up after bad dreams or when he just wants to be touched. At least this way, no one will steal his goddamn pillows.

“I’m sorry.” Steve reaches for Sam, then winces and withdraws his hand. “This doesn’t mean we have to live like monks for two months. We can—wear masks? You know, when we—”

“I get it,” Sam says, his mind temporarily blanking out. “Uh. Let’s—think on that, okay?”

“Or I could be your surrogate,” Bucky says. At Steve and Sam’s blank expressions, he elaborates, “I mean, I can sleep with Steve for you. You give me directions, I do what you want to do with Steve.”

“ _No_ ,” Sam says firmly, before Steve, with his very intrigued expression, can respond. “Not unless you can promise that you’re 100% into that. And even then, I’m not sure if _I’d_ be into that. Bossing people around isn’t really my shtick.”

Bucky shrugs. “I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t down for it. Just something to think about.”

“I know I’ll be thinking about it,” Steve mumbles. Sam throws a pillow at him and he catches it like the asshole with perfect reflexes and an even more perfect immune system that he is.

“Try to find the positives,” Bucky suggests. “That’s what my third therapist always said to me.”

“Wasn’t she one of the ones that ended up being HYDRA?” asks Steve.

Bucky shrugs. “Her MSW was real enough. That’s why I distrust and dislike all social workers.” Ignoring Steve’s kick to his shin, he continues, “Anyway, at least if you’re stuck at home, you can focus on all the things you keep saying you want to do but don’t have time for. Like learning Russian. Or leash-training Alpine.”

“Leash-training Alpine is _your_ goal, not mine.” Then, because Sam’s a bit of a bastard and can’t resist, he adds, “I have both my hands, and I’d like to keep it that way.” 

Bucky flips him off with his metal finger. “Well, I don’t want her being mad at _me_.”

“Thanks,” Sam answers dryly.

“I know this sucks,” Steve interjects, before he and Bucky can get into their ongoing debate as to if Alpine is actually a gentle, loving emotional support cat, or some sort of demonic interdimensional conscience that ended up trapped in a feline-shaped vessel. “And I’m sorry. I really am. Not being able to touch you without a mask on, not being able to hold you—I would do anything to keep you safe. And I’ll do this. But for what it’s worth, I hate it too.”

“I know you do.” Sam sighs, but this is what it means to be a hero, and all that crap, isn’t it? And as sacrifices go, this isn’t the biggest one he’s ever been asked to make. “I know you have to do this. I’m not gonna ask you not to help people just ‘cause I’d like to spoon with you. We’re in this together, okay?”

“I love you,” Steve says, and Bucky rolls his eyes and mutters, “Sap,” but he’s looking at Sam too with real affection in his eyes, and Sam knows that pandemic or no pandemic, he’s one hell of a lucky guy.

* * *

It takes about three days for Sam to decide that The New Normal is A) a deeply cursed phrase that he never wants to hear ever again, and B) complete fucking bullshit.

It isn’t so bad at first. Yeah, it sucks sleeping alone, when he’d gotten so used to having a minimum of one supersoldier to spoon with. And the lack of physical contact is a bitch and a half. It’s true what they say: you don’t know what you have until you’re in the midst of a pandemic and your boyfriends come home every day looking tired and disheveled and you can’t even fucking kiss them hello. But he’s nothing if not adaptable, and the nightmares aren’t anything like they were when he first came home, and Steve decides that probably it’s okay if they hold hands for a few minutes every evening, as long as they wear gloves and their heads are turned away from each other and they have on masks, so it’s not like he’s completely bereft of affection. Sam copes.

It becomes a routine: The three of them get up early every morning and go for their run. Steve and Bucky, masked out of precaution, keep exactly six feet apart from Sam. Bucky glares at anyone who even comes close to their radius.

After they shower, Steve and Bucky head out to wherever they’re required that day. It varies. Sometimes they’re working with the National Guard, distributing PPE or running testing sites in the hardest-hit areas. Sometimes they go into nursing homes or hospital wards and disinfect them from floor to ceiling. Sometimes they’re bringing groceries to the elderly, to people who are high-risk, or to people who live in food deserts.

In any case, they come home in the evening and immediately perform an extremely unerotic striptease, pulling off their potentially virus-ridden clothes, sealing their shoes in a bag and immediately heading to the washing machine. Sam keeps his distance. He can’t even enjoy the show all that much, not when he knows he won’t be able to touch them, even after the disinfectant showers that they both take.

They still eat together, just… farther apart than usual. Steve and Bucky sometimes recount the days’ events. Other times, they’re quiet and grim-faced, their silence a screaming reminder that people are sick, are _dying_ while Sam loafs around at home.

Because that’s his routine. He loafs. Both in the sense that he typically ends up falling back asleep after their run, and in the sense that he’s made bread three times since this whole thing began.

The first few days aren’t so bad. It’s nice to get some extra sleep, even if it’s alone. And the truth is, Bucky wasn’t entirely wrong—there are things that Sam has been wanting to do, but always put off because he wasn’t sure if he’d have time to finish before they got called away again.

He calls his mom to make sure she’s in a good situation right now. His reward for being a good son is a two-hour lecture about what a nice _surprise_ it is to receive a real phone call from him instead of one of those texting messages, and she is feeling just _fine_ thank you for asking, and her churchfolk are dropping off groceries for her and making sure she’s got everything she needs, isn’t that _so_ nice of them, and she saw him on TV helping to evacuate some folks from a high-rise that caught fire but that was _last_ week and she’s barely heard _two words_ from him since, so what has he been doing that’s so important he couldn’t reply to all the pictures of his nieces and nephews that she sent him, was he just that busy making the beast with three backs with his soldierboy roommates?

“Mama, I am hanging up,” he informs her, extremely grateful that no one but Alpine was around to here the noise he made at that last bit. “I love you. I’ll call again soon.”

He deep-cleans their entire penthouse. He does all three loads of laundry that have accumulated since they were last home. He throws a catnip pillow at Alpine when she decides to start tearing around the place, chirping like a deranged Tweety-bird. He makes their whole dinner from scratch, from the garlic-teriyaki marinade for the steak tips to the Parmesan-crusted asparagus spears to the honey-butter biscuits. When Steve and Bucky get home, the place is sparkling and smells like a goddamn steakhouse.

That’s day one.

Day two, he doesn’t have quite as much to do. He tries starting a novel but finds it hard to concentrate, too busy thinking about what Steve and Bucky are getting up to at the veteran’s home they’re working at today. He moves on to watching some of the talkies that his boyfriends have brought up. He keeps a running list of their old-timey references, just as they keep a list of all his pop culture mentions. Usually they don’t watch the old movies, though, because they leave everyone squirming with the often not-at-all veiled racism and misogyny.

This’ll be a nice surprise, he figures. Steve and Bucky will get home, and he’ll start dropping mentions about wives versus secretaries and chumps at Oxford. It’ll be great.

Sam makes it three movies before he has to shut off the TV. He seriously considers taking another shower, but that involves standing still, and he doesn’t want to do that either.

Wandering around restless doesn’t do any good. He thinks about texting Nat or Clint, or some of his old Air Force buddies, even, but he just isn’t in the mood for talking.

Sam gets the idea while he’s flipping through their viewing history. Steve and Bucky have developed a Thing for watching baking shows. He’s yet to figure out why they like them so much. Low chance of triggers, probably. Maybe it’s a side effect of growing up during the Depression and spending years supping on nothing but grass and the occasional unsellable turnip from the nice Mr. Santarossa who ran the grocery on the corner. Maybe it’s just a white person thing.

Whatever the reason, it’s starting to rub off on him more than he likes to let on.

So Sam bakes bread. Rosemary focaccia, with herbal-infused olive oil for dipping. Measuring out the ingredients and watching the dough form soothes him enough that he’s able to sit down and make it through _The Thin Man_ while he waits for it to rise.

By the time his boys come home, he’s got a mean lasagna bubbling in the oven. And the focaccia is a thing of beauty, golden-brown with a pillowy interior and a crisp bottom. It’s a hit. Mostly.

“I think your crumb structure is a bit tight,” Bucky informs him halfway through his third slice. 

Sam launches the wine cork at him and scores a hit directly between his eyes. “Oh, fuck you, man, you don’t even know what that _means_.”

“Don’t listen to him, Sam,” Steve says loyally. “I think your flavor profiles are _excellent_.”

Days slide and slip by like that: cooking, movies, listening to Steve and Bucky’s stories at night. Until things start break down at the one-week mark. As is typical in Sam’s life, it’s Steve’s fault.

Well. In a roundabout sort of way.

“You should go flying,” Steve suggests. The words come out muffled because he’s pulling on his mask as he says them. He and Bucky are by the door, Bucky already covered up and looking so grim-faced that Sam half expects him to pull out his kohl and start painting underneath his eyes. 

Sam, for his part, is still in his sweaty running shorts. A moment earlier, he’d been bitching about not having anything to do. Which he recognizes is a bit insensitive, given how busy Steve and Bucky have been, but his feelings are real and valid and he’s going to fucking feel them.

“Flying is a good, socially-distanced activity,” agrees Bucky, who earlier that morning had given some NYU-grad-student-looking hipster heart palpitations. She had been staring at her phone and come dangerously close to entering Sam’s six-foot radius. Bucky had loudly cleared his throat and glared at her with a look so deadly that the tulips on the path next to them had wilted.

“All your permits are in order, right? Plus, people like seeing you and Tony flying around. It would cheer them up. If you wanted to.” 

Steve blows him a kiss. At least, he thinks Steve does; it’s kind of hard to say, with the mask and all. “Love you. See you tonight.”

“Love you too. Stay safe.”

Then they’re gone and Sam’s alone (except for Alpine, but she’s still burrowed deep somewhere in Bucky’s unmade bed like the mooch she is, so she really doesn’t count as good company).

Flying. Huh. It’s not a bad idea.

That’s what he thinks at the time. And a little while later, when he’s strapping on his wings, and when he’s on the roof of their building taking off. 

And at first, it _is_ good. Being back in the air is like stretching muscles he didn’t realize were wasting away. The wings work like a dream; Tony tuned them up last month, and now there’s not even that weird buzzing noise from the left side. The early spring air chills his skin til it’s on the verge of being uncomfortable, without ever quite pushing him to feeling like he should’ve put on another layer. 

It’s good. It really is.

And then he looks down.

It’s rush hour. The streets should be packed. Storefronts should be lit up. There should be people pouring out of each subway station, sidewalks crowded with gawking tourists and locals shoving past them.

Instead, it’s empty.

New York empty, anyway. There are still people scattered about. But those dots moving way down on the ground, they’re the ants left over after a toddler has stomped on their hill. Not the thriving ant farm Sam knows and loves.

The realization that he’s started thinking in ant metaphors makes him consider that maybe the altitude is messing with his head. He lets himself dive a bit lower. But the picture is no better closer-up, throwing out his theory that maybe his goggles are just so dirty that he’s missing all the life below him.

It’s wrong on a visceral level that leaves him feeling unsteady and shaky, like his wings are starting to fail. No matter where he looks, the people that should be there just… aren’t. 

It’s not exactly like he’s back in the desert, flying through a town whose residents are shuttered away against the fear that what the Americans bring will be worse than the terror they already know. But it’s much closer than he’d like it to be.

Ten minutes or so later, his heart jumps: below him is a sidewalk that seems to have a normal amount of people crowded on it! For a moment, cool relief floods his veins.

Then he takes a better look. He’s flying over Harlem now, one of the severely gentrified parts. Except apparently it’s gotten worse than he realized, because that’s definitely a Whole Foods.

And there are people lined up outside of it. It’s like something out of one of those Depression-Era photos of the unemployed at breadlines. The sort of shit Steve and Bucky would talk about in a way that left Sam uncertain as to if they were actually reminiscing, or if they were just fucking with him.

But he hasn’t accidentally flown through some sort of wormhole, or been sent back eighty years by an evil wizard. That’s definitely Whole Foods, and he’s definitely in the present, and New York is practically empty except for all the hipsters lining up to buy their kale in the middle of a plague.

Sam turns around and flies back to the apartment.

He takes another shower. He drifts to the couch, sits down, stands up, drifts to the kitchen, stands in front of their very-full fridge that’s stuffed with cooking supplies for all the things he thought he’d make with his free time. Because apparently that’s what he’s come to. New York’s residents are trapped inside their homes, Steve and Bucky are on the frontlines, supporting the fight against the disease that holds them hostage, and he’s babysitting a sourdough starter.

He thinks he’s a superhero? Fucking useless, that’s what he is.

He closes the fridge door and rests his forehead against it, practicing the breathing exercises he’s taught a hundred other people. _Your worth isn’t determined by your productivity,_ he thinks. _Everyone deserves to rest._ These are mantras he has also recited to and with other people many times before. _You’ve got people who love you and want you healthy. Your safety matters._

 _If you wanna help people, then stop feeling sorry for yourself and_ do _something_ , is what comes to mind next. It sounds like Riley’s voice. 

Christ, if his friend could see him now. Living it up in a penthouse apartment with two men he loves while his city falls apart. Having a breakdown ‘cause he can’t take his own goddamn advice.

Something brushes against his shin. He looks down in time to see Alpine twining between his legs. She purrs and butts her head against him, and he automatically crouches down to pet her.

Somewhere between rubbing her ears and scratching her behind, he realizes that the panic has thoroughly abated. For the first time, he wonders if maybe Bucky’s claims of her being an emotional support cat have some weight to them. 

Then she bites him and zooms off, her tail up high like a fluffy middle finger.

“Asshole,” he calls after her. Predictably, she ignores him.

He straightens and takes a deep breath, allowing himself a moment to recenter himself. Not forcing any words of wisdom through his head. Just existing. 

Then he reaches for his phone. Pandemic or not, he’s got work to do.

**Author's Note:**

> There should be at least one more chapter exploring Sam's Plague Life. Comments are Extremely Appreciated, and you can find me on tumbleau [here](https://lies-unfurl.tumblr.com/).


End file.
